Last week Han Han already mentioned about this news in his blog, The Chinese new year is here soon, people in China should be careful sending text messages, especially if you are in Shanghai, you don’t want your cell phone to stop working while sending text, and then going to the local police station to write a promise note on new years day! Here is the actual news and some netizens’ reactions.

“On what basis, you can look at my text messages?”

News from QQ:

In order to cooperate with the dedicated actions which were launched by nine ministries on penetrating and punishing obscene, pornographic and vulgar information on the internet and cell phone, China Mobile Shanghai branch currently has introduced a number of effective measures to cooperate with the public security department to block out the criminals’ “pornographic channels”.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Shanghai Mobile: cell phone sends pornographic text messages will be terminated, after being verified of course’

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I picked these two articles because they showed two completely different views on the Google China situation in China. First one is a blog post written by KESO (洪波) a well-known IT blogger in China.  (I have translated one of is blog posts back when Kai-fu Lee resigned from Google China.) The latter one is an article from one of the Chinese media site: People’s daily, written by a netizen named Jiang Bojing (姜伯静).  Compare them for yourself…

Google to withdraw from China

By well-known IT blogger: KESO

Google officially announced that they will no longer review and censor search results on google.cn and they will have discussions with the Chinese government in the next few weeks. How can Google.cn operate legally under the premise of not providing filtered searches? If they cannot achieve these, Google will consider closing Google.cn, even all of its China offices.

To Google, this is a difficult decision. To me, this is a painful choice. Most of my life online depend on Google. I use Google to search, Gmail to send emails, Google Reader to read many of my subscribed contents, Google Docs for managing all my office documents and Picasa for processing photos and even marking their geo-locations… All of these, there is no third party application can replace Google. Not to mention that there are large numbers of Chinese enterprises, such as Alibaba, need to rely on Google’s search and advertising for their global business.

» » » » Continue reading ‘More Chinese opinions on Google leaving China (Keso vs. People’s Daily)’

Just 2 days ago CC sent me a link to a Chinese blog post about how he noticed his personal emails from Gmail account was accessed and screened by GFW. I was skeptical and thought it could just be a hoax or hype or just a theory. And today, the news broke out. Google officially announced that they will no longer provide censored searches for Google.cn because they faced cyber attacks originated from China which targeted Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists! This could mean end of the road for Google in China.

As part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

My jaw dropped as I read the statement from Google. This is exactly what the blog I read 2 days ago tries to prove.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Gmail security breach, want some proof?’

If you ever travel in China by train, make sure you don’t have any porno on your cell phone, or else you could be jailed!

From Zhengzhou evening news:

“A couple arrested for watching porn at home”, an incident happened 7 years ago which had triggered a national debate over the relationships and boundaries between the law and individual rights. Chongqing resident Zhao Peng (not his real name) never would have thought 7 years have passed but similar incident happened again; this time it happened to him, his cell phone had a clip of Japanese adult video which caused him being arrested.

» » » » Continue reading ‘The porno on your cell phone can get you arrested in China’

[From Huanqui] Dahe December 24 reports, couple of days ago, 176 karaoke places in Chongqing has installed the karaoke content management system, once someone selects to sing vulgar songs or banned songs, culture law enforcement central monitoring system will automatically flash red lights to alarm the police. Yesterday, reporter learned that Zhengzhou already started to use this system and next year will be implemented in the entire province.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Karaoke monitoring system that calls the police automatically when vulgar song is played’

(Image: Guns N’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy” album cover, released in November 2008)

When Chinese people write blog articles, their meaning is often subdued and slightly nuanced, they are less willing be to direct and straightforward. Or, even if it seems that they are being direct, they will have hidden meanings embedded in what they say. While some topics are just sensitive no matter what in China, democracy is one of those that might be sensitive or might not, depending on the context. On one hand, for example, Yu Keping, the deputy director of the Central Translation Bureau, wrote an essay (and then a book) entitled “Democracy is a Good Thing” and this article was widely published and praised among Chinese media and officials. On the other hand, Charter 08, a petition advocating democracy in China caused the government to interrogate and threaten many of the petition’s original writers. Hence, most Chinese thinkers choose the more nuanced, indirect route. The following essay is written by a blogger who often discusses democracy:

» » » » Continue reading ‘How should we live before democracy?’

How would you like to live in a world without facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr etc. What would you do if I tell you starting from tomorrow you are not allowed to access these sites anymore? As many of you probably already know, this is actually a reality in China – a country which has the highest number of internet users. Due to censorship policy in China, especially Internet Censorship, as for now, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Flickr etc. are all blocked by the GFW – Great Firewall of China.

One of the easiest methods allowing you to get over the “wall” and access these blocked sites, browsing the internet freely and anonymously is to use a VPN software like Freedur. Freedur 2.0 the latest version is available for download. Freedur cost $59.99 for one year of subscribtion. But here is something for ChinaHush readers, for limited time, if you enter the coupon code CHINAHUSH, you will receive an additional 10% discount!

» » » » Continue reading ‘Freedom On the Internet’

Hong Huang’s (洪晃) fashion magazine “ILOOK” shot another “edge ball”! (An activity that is ambiguous in its legal status) She invited China’s best designer Xander Zhou (周翔宇) as the guest editor and China’s cutting-edge photographer Trunk Xu (许闯), visually putting Chinese gays into her magazine. Total of 160 pages, directly presented Chinese gays’ life style. Guest editor Xander Zhou is on the cover page with the title “中国真高兴-Gay China”. (a pun of popular book “China is Unhappy“)

This article from Netease has the title “Hello Comrade”. The word “Comrade” (同志) in Chinese is another term used to describe homosexual. If you divide the two characters, the first character means “same” the second character means “will”, hence the slang.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Hello! Comrade! Gay China’

Today I learned a new Chinese slang, 庐舍: (Pinyin: Lu She). The original meaning is “farmhouse”. When used as slang it is a phonetic translation of the English word “Loser”. Internet definition: Netizens who are over-indulged in the internet community on chat, animation, games and making friends etc. activities, without ambition and just muddling along. This group of people are so called “Loser Group” or “Loser Clan” (“庐舍族”). This forum post explains with a nice piece of “anti-loser” music video propaganda.

» » » » Continue reading ‘China Cracks Down on Internet “Losers”’

[NetEase] College student Li, Yu (李玉）was in an uncomfortable situation last week while completing her registration form for blood donation — she lost her right to donate blood as a result of her honesty regarding her sexuality. As such, Yu signed her name on an online petition to encourage the government to eliminate the existing discriminating terms against homosexual people in the blood donation regulations.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Homosexuals Banned From Donating Blood, Protests Soared Online to Protect Equality’

Most people already know the issues on Censorship in China. Especially Internet Censorship, as for now, Twitter, YouTube, facebook and flickr etc. are all blocked in China. Netizens spend numerous times on techniques on how to get over the “Great Firewall of China”. This is an ongoing topic being discussed to death. Many blogs are dedicated for this issue, dedicated to show people how to “climb over the wall”.  So you can probably find plenty information on this if you want to know more about it.  Today, I came across these 2 blog posts talked about censorship vs. innovation.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Censorship vs. Innovation in China’

 DW-World: Well-known Chinese dissident, writer in Beijing Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波) after being house arrested by the police at a secret location for over six month, is formally arrested for “suspicion of inciting subversion of state power”. This also means that the case against Liu Xiaobo officially launched judicial proceedings.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Chinese Dissident, Liu Xiaobao Formally Arrested’

From HRIC:

A Chinese government directive requiring domestic computer manufacturers and manufacturers that export computers to China to pre-install filtering software – “Green Dam Youth Escort” software – was made public on June 8, 2009. Human Rights in China (HRIC) has translated the directive and compiled the following background information on the development and use of the software.

» » » » Continue reading ‘Chinese Government Orders Computer Manufacturers to Pre-install Filtering Software’